I'll Remember Her
by Xaviera Xylira
Summary: There is no summary. Nyah.


A/N: Um... This is a Ginny/ Draco fic, told from Draco's POV, and set ten years after his graduation from Hogwarts. I'm sorry if it seems a tad strange, but like author like fic. I'd really appreciate it if you would review for me. After all, it's only a matter of clicking the mouse and typing a little. You can flame me if you want, I don't care. You won't get rid of me. 

Disclaimer: You really think I possess the intelligence to create such brilliant characters? 

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I'll Remember Her

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Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if I hadn't been such an idiot. Maybe we could've been something together. Maybe I could've made her happy. Maybe we'd be happy together....

But there is no together, and I know there never will be. I wonder why I still let myself think about her when I know perfectly well that I'll never see her again. But I can't exactly forget her. I don't want to forget her... I just don't want to think about her. 

Yeah, I'm definitely an idiot. The stupid, senseless kind. 

She told me she loved me. We hadn't even been dating. We weren't best friends, either. But we had worked together, side by side, meeting after meeting, plan after plan, trying to find a way to bring down the Dark Lord. In that year, she was starting to mean something to me. I had never really noticed her before, except to see that she was Potter's hopeless little follower. I had never cared for her except for the occasional insult.

Then it came down to a strict division: Either you were with the light side or the dark side. There was no undecided, no in between, no medium, no peace for the ones who wanted to ignore it. Most at Hogwarts joined the light side, including a handful of Slytherins. We were forced, all of us, to work as a team, shoulder to shoulder, _nicely_. 

It wasn't something I was used to back then. 

Then she came along. I walked in for the first meeting, ready to sneer at everyone to show my false superiority, when she smiled softly at me. I have no idea what possessed her, but it changed me. Or at least shook me up. I wasn't expecting people to be caring; I knew I was for the light side and against the dark, but I figured that it wouldn't change the arguments I was sure would happen. 

But you know for sure that when someone you're taught to hate is suddenly smiling kindly at you that the situation you're looking at is serious. 

So we toiled and calculated and planned and spied and did everything we could to stop the inevitable rise of the Dark Lord. Somewhere along the way I had a few conversations with her. She proved to be much more than the dim-witted, pathetic little mouse I had previously thought her as. Instead, I saw her as a woman, full of ideas and life, and a true sense of wrong and right, and courage. 

The realization was earth-shaking. 

She had opinions. She wasn't really a mindless love-sick puppy after all. And she seemed to have a quiet power over people that allowed her to slowly but effectively get her way. She knew the right strategies, the right moves to make and when to refrain from making them. She was your typical perfect princess. 

Then one night I found her in the library, pouring over an old, dusty volume that looked like it was in bad need of some spellotape. She was seated at a table, a thick candle lit to provide her with some reading light, her eyes set in concentration at the words in the ancient book. The flame from the candle was flickering, giving her a soft glow and adding some golden tints to that infamous red hair of hers. I believe that she is the closest thing to an angel that I'll ever see. 

I had come to the library to retrieve a book of ancient prophecies, from the "seer" Bestalphenus, in hopes that I might gain some perspective on what the Dark Lord might be planning next. It was rumored that he might be following a destruction route loosely based on Bestalphenus' foretellings. 

But then I saw her there, and my feet carried me to her table instead of the aisle where I was supposed to be headed for. She looked up as I sat down, and we were silent for a while. I locked my eyes with hers, and we stared at each other. It was strange. I felt like I was having a conversation with her eyes. 

A very deep, meaningful conversation. 

And slowly, after what seemed like hours of staring, her eyes gradually filled with tears, and I got up, rose to her side of the table, and pulled her into my arms. She hadn't said one word to me, but I knew everything. I recognized that pain in her eyes. I recognized that look of desperate longing for acceptance, that look of inexplicable despair for something that no one could really help. I recognized that look that she had hidden so well. And so I held her all night, stroking her hair while she wept softly and silently. 

It became a regular thing. Once in a while, we both seemed to know when even though it was never planned, we'd meet somewhere. It didn't matter where precisely--- the lake, the Astronomy Tower, an empty classroom; it only mattered that we were both there. For each other. 

Sometimes we'd speak out loud, other times we'd just stare at each other in a way that we had grown accustomed to. It was like telling our secrets without actually using words. And sometimes she'd cry because of the hopelessness that the entire reason, the entire fight seemed to be at times. 

I remember graduation day. I was out on the abandoned Quidditch pitch for one last reminiscent before I'd leave it forever and live an adult's life. She came up to me with those eyes of hers, the eyes that held so much wisdom and pain, and though I knew it was there, I never could tell how she'd acquired it all. I held her one last time and she kissed me for the first time. 

I wasn't incredibly surprised by the kiss. It seemed natural, right. And then she told me she loved me. She looked at me and told me that I'd done so much for her, and she loved me. I asked her how she could love me, I told her that it didn't happen like this, Gryffindors don't fall in love with Slytherins and vice versa. Her eyes filled up with pain again and she stepped away from me.

Why did I say that? Why did I have to be an idiot and ruin everything? 

She blinked at me, but there were no tears in her eyes, only pain. She seemed to be beyond tears. I wanted desperately to reach out to her and tell her that I didn't care what house we were in; the Hogwarts houses wouldn't dominate the rest of our lives. I wanted to tell her that I loved her too. But like the hopeless idiot I am, I turned around and walked away. 

I walked away from the woman I loved. 

By the time I turned around, it was too late. I wasn't on the Quidditch pitch anymore. I wasn't even on Hogwarts grounds. By the time I turned around, I was ten years too late. Ten years too late to say I'm sorry, ten years too late to say I love you too, ten years too late to do anything but regret. 

I'll regret not looking back the rest of my life. 

The last I heard of her, she'd mysteriously disappeared. No one knew anything about it. Voldemort had been killed years earlier by Potter, along with most of his followers. Those who weren't killed who were on the dark side would rather marry Lockhart than _admit_ to being on the dark side, so kidnap or murder seems improbable. Ministry investigators say that when they searched her flat for any signs of suspicious acts, they found nothing but a few empty drawers of clothes and her Gringotts bank account cleaned. Some say that she ran away because she was tired of her regular life at the Ministry and wanted a new experience, some adventure. Others insist that she'd gone off to join some valiant cause in another troubled country. And then there's a few who say that she left to find herself, or escape from something---maybe something from her past---that had been haunting her for a long time. I saw her parents and one of her brothers by chance a few days after news of her disappearance got out. They looked distressed and miserable, but it seemed to me like they almost expected it to happen. 

Sometimes I think I hear her, too. Sometimes I think I hear her voice whispering those famous last words I heard from her. 

Wherever she is, I pray she's happy. I pray she's forgotten the hurt I've caused her, though I think of what I did to her everyday. I pray that she's forgotten me. 

But with each day that I live through, I'll remember her. 

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End file.
